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Are those the Jockey Club marks for both Desert Orchid’s wins that I mentioned?
Are you sure that’s not the rating the Post had him running to?
I transcribed the 1989/90 form to the form book and have 182 as Desert Orchid’s mark for the Racing Post Chase. If he ran off 185 then I’m pretty sure he’d have been rated even higher than 187 by the likes of Timeform: it was an 8-runner race which he won by 8 lengths, 8 lengths and 15 lengths. ÂÂÂ
(Edited by Prufrock at 7:06 pm on Dec. 5, 2004)
I don’t follow jumps racing especially closely at present, but even I got excited about this one.
Out on a Christmas shopping trip (wince) with my girlfriend, we popped into a pub just in time, as it happens :biggrin: , to watch this spectacle. Most of the pub stopped to stare, and by the end I, kinda rooting for Moscow Flyer but wanting a good race as much as anything, was shaking like a leaf.
That really was as good a jump race as I can remember for a long time.
Incidentally, much, much earlier in the thread it was pointed out that Azertyuiop won off a mark of 174. According to my records, Desert Orchid’s win in the Racing Post Chase in 1990 was off 182 and his win at Sandown a year later was off 177: something that those who seem to think that he was popular mostly because he was grey seem to forget.
Can anyone confirm this?
This might not play well with the posse, but I’m currently listening to Aphex Twin’s "Ambient Works" and am shortly going to put Boards of Canada’s "Geogaddi" on. I’m a bit of an ambient/experimental type but managed to segue Radiohead and Divine Comedy a bit earlier……….
So there.
Homosexuality is not a life choice, even though some expressions of it might be, but fox-hunting is.
If you don’t want to engage in it you can pack away the pink and the other funny clothes and customs and do something else.
Fox-hunting, that is, not homosexuality. ;)
Mixed-race relationships are a human right in any civilised society and are rightly protected by international legislation. If you or I don’t like it, tough. There are plenty of things I don’t "like" but which I put up with.
I do not, however, see why anyone should have a human right to glorify in pursuing a living creature to a horrific death for no good reason.
For their own good, the pro-hunting brigade should really have settled at an early stage on whether fox-hunting was an efficient and (relatively) humane way of controlling vermin or just a costly bit of "fun" in which (in your and EW’s words) people "usually have a ride round for a couple of hours then go home".
They didn’t make the distinction—essentially because they couldn’t—but to this day continue to claim that it is definitely one or definitely the other according to what suits their needs at the time. ÂÂÂ
I still fail entirely to see what the problem with drag-hunting is. Presumably a large degree of the "unpredictable" aspect of "proper" hunting can be replicated with a bit of creativity, not to mention its enabling people of a certain persuasion to rampage around the countryside much as before.
While it seems that the "moral" argument has been "lost", at least for the time being, by the hunters, the practical and economical ones have not been in my view. Personally, I favour a degree of government subsidy for hunts for the next five years on the understanding that those Hunts convert immediately to drag-hunting and do not flout the law. That way there would be little or no need for horses and dogs to be put down or for those directly employed by the Hunts to be put out of a job. But such a suggestion is unlikely to find favour with more hard-line elements.
Ultimately, however, I don’t see what my wider personal ethics—be it on homosexuality, on mixed-race relationships or on vegetarianism—has to do with a discussion of the likely impact a ban on fox-hunting would have on horseracing, which is what this thread, on a Racing Forum, was meant to be about in the first place.
Perhaps we can return to that important issue before our respective hand-wringing bores people further.
You are quite right in saying that education and example are the ideal ways of changing people’s behaviour. That’s the way I look at the issue of meat-eating/vegetarianism myself.
But there are presumably some types of behaviour that even you feel require a more drastic response.
We have seen a possible example this week. I think that the best way to respond to racism, such as was in evidence in Madrid, is by education and example. But I also feel that you should attempt to impose your will on people whose behaviour offends you provided you have some sort of mandate to do so.
What a lot of people who support fox-hunting or are indifferent to it don’t seem to appreciate is just how deeply offensive the pastime is to a lot of others. You don’t have to witness this behaviour at first hand all the time, you just need to know that it is going on and being tolerated or even encouraged in your society.
The crux of the issue from my point of view is that deliberate cruelty to animals is not only unacceptable for itself but it does "negatively impact" on people, some of them at least, by its very existence. Judged by the support a ban on fox-hunting has got, many others think likewise.
Anyway, what is done is done, and what will be will be. I thought it was a good idea to try to turn the argument back towards what this has to do with horseracing, given that this is a horseracing forum rather than a forum for moral and philosophical debate.
There has been oddly little response to my post of 10-19.
(Edited by Prufrock at 12:41 am on Nov. 24, 2004)
Incidentally, my own view is that horseracing is in a good position to defend itself against accusations of cruelty should they be forthcoming (though in not quite so good a position as would have been the case had it distanced itself from hunting some time back).
However, I must admit that, having switched from primarily following jump racing to primarily following Flat racing about 7 years ago, I find myself more and more uneasy with some elements of the former code.
In particular, the regular sight of jumpers having bad falls is one that all followers of racing must feel uncomfortable (at least) about from time to time. Add to that the hunting link (from my point of view anyway) and the fact that many of our equine heroes/villains surely meet grim ends away from the course, and I’m not sure that racing should be complacent about this issue.
I’m not trying to antagonise anyone—besides anything, some of the above applies to Flat racing as well as jumps—but wonder whether others ever feel uncomfortable about the whole set-up.
I feel that racing fans (of which I am most definitely one) tend to brush such matters under the carpet, especially when dealing with people from outside the sport.
If anyone’s going to do any patronising around here, it’s surely going to be me. I have a Pee-H-Dee in it. :biggrin:
Far from it in any case, grasshopper. I think the level of debate on this and other threads continues to do credit to the great institution that is TRF.
BTW, the mention of paedophiles was a deliberate absurdum in an attempt to disprove the idea that other people can do what they like so long as they don’t bother you directly—an answer to what I saw as the implication of the remark "…and fox-hunting affects me how?".
I realise that it would be an inappropriate parallel for fox-hunting itself. Henceforth I will use your example of mistreatment of pets if attempting to draw a parallel. Thanks. ÂÂÂ
Prufrock, your choice of peadophilia as a corollary for fox-hunting is both outlandish, and ill-advised.
I think I was guilty of trying to get a rise.
Apologies to any paedophiles who feel insulted by the comparison.
(That was a JOKE, just in case anyone didn’t realise it). <br>
I believe that living in a civilised society—which is something I am fortunate enough to do on the whole and which is a situation I am very keen on preserving— requires something more than an "I’m alright Jack" attitude to things that don’t immediately impinge on my own behaviour.
The activities of paedophiles, for instance, do not affect me directly. But that doesn’t mean I reckon it’s alright for such people to do what they wish to do without any type of societal constraint so long as it continues not to affect me.
If you (stevedvg) felt the same about meat-eating then you could try to do something about it: perhaps you do and have done. Within the law you would be entirely within your rights.
On the issue of how the ban on foxhunting will affect horseracing, I have always been firmly of the view that the sport’s leaders have done us a massive disservice by aligning horseracing so closely with foxhunting. It would arguably be no more than they deserve if the "do-gooders" (TM) turned their attentions on horseracing as a consequence.
One argument for preserving the links always seemed to be that "well, that’s just the way it’s always been". That’s not good enough. The objections to the continued links with foxhunting from within horseracing have become much greater in the last decade or so: in plenty of time for the BHB, for instance, to do the right thing. Their initial response was for Lord Wakeham (their Chairman at the time and officially prufrock’s most detested person within racing ever) to get on stage at a Countryside March in Hyde Park and state categorically that racing supported hunting, despite the fact that very many within racing quite clearly did not.
The BHB has continued Canute-like with this policy in the few years since, rather than devoting their efforts, as they should have done, to accentuating less divisive aspects of the sport. <br>
(Edited by Prufrock at 8:40 pm on Nov. 23, 2004)
Personally, I believe that this cheapens us as a country.
And I agree with you. "This" being the pursuit of a living creature to a cruel death in the name of sport in my case, however.
(PS: when were the followers of the Countryside Alliance "voiceless"? I wish they were, but they clearly are not)
I’d agree with most of the above, except that I’d have legalising toot higher up (if I understand what you mean by "toot" in the first place). :biggrin: :cool:
The "small issue" argument has been used, possibly with justification, for decades, and the result is that nothing has ever been done.
Now that this "small issue" has finally come to a head, after a seeming eternity of procrastination, among those who are after all convinced that it is a big issue are the Lords and supporters of the Countryside Alliance. The former has delayed the parliamentary process against the wishes of the public and its elected representatives. The latter have already been responsible for civil disobedience and by all accounts will step this up hugely upon the Bill becoming law.
They don’t agree with you that it is a small issue, and without their interventions this "small issue" would have been quickly consigned to history some time ago.
I do agree with you that it is a, relatively, small issue. But, rather like a leaky tap that you never get round to fixing because there are more important things to do, I think that it is something that should be sorted out.
Have you any views on the effect the ban will have on horseracing and of the stance taken by some of those in power in horseracing on this matter over the years?
This is, after all, a RACING forum. ;)
With regards to the effect a ban on foxhunting will have on horseracing, it is also not as if the racing authorities will have been taken unawares.
They have made it known off the record that contingency plans were drawn up several years ago for point-to-points to continue as much as possible in the event of a ban coming to pass. The main reason they didn’t publicise this fact was that they seemed to imagine that it would somehow make a ban more likely to happen.
We agree on that, Grasshopper. My last real action as a Labour Party member was to protest about the apparently imminent invasion of Iraq during Blair’s speech at the Labour Party Conference in 2002.
However, if we always ignore the "smaller" things in politics then those smaller things will never be attended to.
Why bother with building new hospitals when the situation in Iraq needs to be sorted out? Why build a new road? Why bother to try sorting out the mess that is gambling legislation?
It is not as if the issue of banning foxhunting has only just come up: it has been with us for decades now, and all too often it has been put on the back burner because it has been seen to be insignificant.
Long overdue, I reckon.<br>
The fact that some people, foolishly in my view, seem to regard banning foxhunting as a way to settle class scores should be an irrelevance as far as the central argument is concerned.
Throughout history people have adopted causes, noble and otherwise, for valid and invalid reasons. But it is the cause itself that is the issue.
Foxhunting (rather like the activities of paedophiles) doesn’t affect me directly, other than through horseracing’s continued and unnecessary association with it. But I do feel I have some sort of right to expect to live in a society which is free of this particular brand of barbarism.  ÂÂÂ
(Edited by Prufrock at 6:19 pm on Nov. 23, 2004)
I wonder how much money the Countryside Alliance has spent, and will continue to spend, on sponsorship, organising marches, lobbying MPs, writing letters to every paper under the sun, mounting a High Court challenge and so much more.
Imagine if those millions had gone into converting hunts into drag hunts and finding homes for the dogs and horses of those that they couldn’t convert rather than engaging in a Canute-like activity that has just made country issues even more UNpopular with many than they were before.
(Edited by Prufrock at 12:05 am on Nov. 20, 2004)
